A study on profile of stillbirths.

The Government of India has set the goal of reducing perinatal mortality from its present level of 46/1000 live births to under 35/1000 by the year 2000. This study investigated the characteristics of stillbirths at a teaching hospital in Calcutta India in 1993. During the 12-month study period there were 8488 live births and 326 stillbirths (38.4/1000 live births). In 314 stillbirths (96.3%) there was some adverse fetal condition at hospital admission. These included intrauterine growth retardation (45.4%) fetal distress and intrauterine hypoxia (18.4%) malpresentation or malposition (11.9%) and multiple pregnancy (8.3%). Of the 309 stillborns in whom birth weight was recorded 79.5% were below 2500 g and 53.1% were below 2000 g. Finally in 218 (78.5%) of the 278 cases for which records were available women received no antenatal care. These findings suggest that more widely accessible antenatal care with special emphasis on intrauterine growth retardation is essential to a reduction in the incidence of perinatal mortality in India.